news
and commentecology

“Government figures show that between January
and June this year, 1.7billion fewer litres of petrol
and diesel were sold compared to the first half of 2008.
That equates to £1billion in lost revenue for
the treasury.”

So that idiot Philip Hammond [Secretary
of State for Transport] wants you to drive faster!

“Sales of petrol fell by an incredible 186.5million
litres in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same
period in 2010. The AA puts the drop down to hard pressed
motorists being driven off the road by record pump prices.
And things just got worse [he means
‘better’!] in the second quarter, with sales
crashing by a further 330.7million litres.

“Although diesel sales were more resilient –
dropping by 31.2million litres over the last six months
compared to 2010 – the extent of falling sales
is brought home by a comparison with pre-recession sales
levels.”

Instead of talking about increased motorway speeds,
most people would save 10 to 20% of fuel consumption by dropping their speed,
avoiding unnecessary braking and avoiding stop-start conditions.
And by employing several other elements of planned driving, let alone trading
to a more modern and/or more efficient vehicle.

“...For the first time, the Arctic loss was enough
to be considered a hole.”
—
“A prolonged chill in the atmosphere high above
the Arctic last winter led to a mobile, morphing hole
in the ozone layer, scientists report in a new paper.
It’s just like the South Pole hole we all studied
in school, but potentially more harmful to humans —
more of us live at northern latitudes. Here are five
things you need to know about it.”

“...In Kentucky, alone, there are 293 MTR [mountain
top removal ] sites, over 1,400 miles of
streams damaged or destroyed, and 2,500 miles of streams
polluted. Valley fill and other surface mining practices
associated with MTR bury headwater streams and contaminate
surface and groundwater with carcinogensand heavy metals
and are associated with reports of cancer clusters,
a finding that requires further study.”
—
“After coal is mined, it is washed in a mixture
of chemicals to reduce impurities that include clay,
non-carbonaceous rock, and heavy metals to prepare for
use in combustion. Coal slurry is the byproduct of these
coal refining plants. In West Virginia, there are currently
over 110 billion gallons of coal slurry permitted for
126 impoundments. Between 1972 and 2008, there were
53 publicized coal slurry spills in the Appalachian
region, one of the largest of which was a 309 million
gallon spill that occurred in Martin County, KY in 2000.
Of the known chemicals used and generated in processing
coal, 19 are known cancer-causing agents, 24 are linked
to lung and heart damage, and several remain untested
as to their health effects.”
—
“ CCW [coal combustion waste] or fly ash—composed
of products of combustion and other solid waste—contains
toxic chemicals and heavy metals; pollutants known to
cause cancer, birth defects, reproductive disorders,
neurological damage, learning disabilities, kidney disease,
and diabetes. A vast majority of the over 1,300 CCW
impoundment ponds in the United States are poorly constructed,
increasing the risk that waste may leach into groundwater
supplies or nearby bodies of water. Under the conditions
present in fly ash ponds, contaminants, particularly
arsenic, antimony, and selenium (all of which can have
serious human health impacts), may readily leach or
migrate into the water supplied for household and agricultural
use.”
—
“ Spath and colleagues found that these emissions
are small in comparison to the air emissions. However,
amore recent study performed by Koornneef and colleagues
using up-to-date data on emissions and impacts, found
that emissions and seepage of toxins and heavy metals
into fresh and marine water were significant. Elevated
levels of arsenic in drinking water have been found
in coal mining areas, along with ground water contamination
consistent with coal mining activity in areas near coal
mining facilities. In one study of drinking water in
four counties in West Virginia, heavy metal concentrations
(thallium, selenium, cadmium, beryllium, barium, antimony,
lead, and arsenic) exceeded drinking water standards
in one fourth of the households. This mounting evidence
indicates thatmore complete coverage ofwater sampling
is needed throughout coal-field regions.”
—
“ The next stage in the life cycle of coal is
combustion to generate energy. Here we focus on coalfired
electricity-generating plants. The by-products of coal
combustion include CO2, methane, particulates
and oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulfur, mercury, and
a wide range of carcinogenic chemicals and heavy metals.”
—
“ Storing compressed and liquefied CO2
underground can acidify saline aquifers (akin to ocean
acidification) and leach heavy metals, such as arsenic
and lead, into ground water.”
—
Still these figures do not represent the full societal
and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the
damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals
and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants
and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside
from mortality related to air pollutants released through
coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct
risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments;
the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication
of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts
of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term
impacts on the physical and mental health of those living
in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of
the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased
tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment
of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate.
The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus
far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for
the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived
electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price
of coal per kWh of electricity generated.”

110 Incidents of fire - When a wind turbine fire occurs,
local fire departments can do little but watch due
to the 30-story height of these turbine units. The
falling debris are then carried across the distance
and cause new fires.

60 Incidents of structural failure- As turbines become
more prevalent, these breakages will become more common
in public areas, thereby causing more deaths and dismemberment's
from falling debris.

24 incidents of "hurling ice"- Ice forms
on these giant blades and is reportedly hurled at
deathly speeds in all directions. Author reports that
some 880 ice incidents having occurred over Germany's
13-years of harnessing wind power.”

It’s all very well to
go around scaremongering.

It will only take about 500 vast
windmills to replace one
ray-generating nuclear power station. Thus, the six
units at Futaba/Fukushima
will not need more than 6000 wind turbines to replace
their 6 or 7 turbines, or 20,000 if you allow for the
rare events when the wind refuses to blow.

Germans can even make windmills over
100 yards high that sometimes produce 7 mW. It will only
take about a square kilometre for each turbine.

Wind rays are the wave (sorry about
that) of the future.

P.S. A warning to any innumerate
windbats, all figures depend on facts.

“Cosmo Oil said a fire had broken out near an
LPG tank at its Chiba refinery and had not been extinguished
by Sunday, though its intensity had lessened. A company
official denied that rain could spread harmful chemicals
from the fire.”

It’s an LPG tank, what’s to worry?

“JX Holdings said a fire at its Sendai refinery
originated from a land oil product shipping facility
nearby, not an LPG tank as feared earlier.”

“Project aim: to explore the pressures on the
global food system between now and 2050 and identify
the decisions that policy makers need to take today,
and in the years ahead, to ensure that a global population
rising to nine billion or more can be fed sustainably
and equitably.

“The global food system will experience an unprecedented
confluence of pressures over the next 40 years. On the
demand side, global population size will increase from
nearly seven billion today to eight billion by 2030,
and probably to over nine billion by 2050; many people
are likely to be wealthier, creating demand for a more
varied, high-quality diet requiring additional resources
to produce. On the production side, competition for
land, water and energy will intensify, while the effects
of climate change will become increasingly apparent.
The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt
to a changing climate will become imperative. Over this
period globalisation will continue, exposing the food
system to novel economic and political pressures.”

Note that you cannot be wealthier,
or have increased demand, if there is insufficient food.
You cannot demand what is not available.

I hope the rest of the report
is of a higher standard! Never mind the quality, feel the width.

“To environmentalists, “clean coal”
is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way
to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest
climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm,
is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in
more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies
are making this possible. China is now the leader in
this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world.
If we are serious about global warming, America needs
to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation
of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will
leave us behind, with grave costs for the world’s
climate and our economy.

“Through the past four years I’ve often
suggested that China’s vaunted achievements are
less impressive, or at least more complicated, seen
up close. Yes, Chinese factories make nearly all of
the world’s consumer electronic equipment. But
the brand names, designs, and most of the profits usually
belong to companies and people outside China. Yes, China’s
accumulated trade surpluses have made it the creditor
for America and much of the world. But the huge share
of its own wealth that China has sunk into foreign economies
ties its fate to theirs. Yes, more and more Chinese
people are very rich. But hundreds of millions of Chinese
people are still very poor. Yes, Chinese factories lead
the world in output of windmills and solar-power panels.
But China’s environmental situation is still so
dire as to pose the main threat not just to the country’s
public health and political stability but also to its
own economic expansion.

“This report will have a different tone. I have
been learning about an area of Chinese achievement that
is objectively good for the world as a whole, including
the United States. Surprising enough! And China’s
achievement dramatically highlights a structural advantage
of its approach and a weakness of America’s. It
involves the shared global effort to reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions, of which China and the United States are
respectively the No. 1 and No. 2 producers, together
creating more than 40 percent of the world’s total
output. That shared effort is real, and important. The
significant Chinese developments involve more than the
“clean tech” boom that Americans have already
heard so much about. Instead a different, less publicized,
and much less appealing-sounding effort may matter even
more in determining whether the United States and China
can cooperate to reduce emissions. This involves not
clean tech but the dirtiest of today’s main energy
sources—coal.”